


Love to Life

by saintlygames



Category: Jackaby - William Ritter
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort/Angst, F/M, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22767751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintlygames/pseuds/saintlygames
Summary: Charlie Barker is alive.--Taking place right after the end of The Dire King.
Relationships: Charlie Cane & Abigail Rook, Charlie Cane/Abigail Rook
Kudos: 10





	Love to Life

Charlie Barker is alive. 

I was awash with emotion when the twain stood above his casket and the blinding light shone through its seams. So bright that the fog of colours from auras and emotions of the funeral attendants was nearly diminished. But not quite. Charlie's aura, orange like the edges of a fire but sweetly pink at its core flickered to life inside the casket. A spark that grew and swelled like a breath blown on a flame.

Choking on a cry, I put my hands over my mouth. My legs swayed, but Jenny and Jackaby caught me by the shoulders. I hadn't even noticed when they left their seats. 

"Miss Rook?" Jackaby asked, sounding worried. "What do you see?"

"The twain", I managed. I could hardly speak. "He brought him back."

Jenny hovered close to me. She glanced at the casket. "You mean…"

"Charlie," Jackaby breathed. "Miss Rook, are you certain? I've read about grief; it can cause minor to major onset of delirium, or --"

"His aura, I see it." Jackaby promptly stopped talking. 

The other caskets to either side were eerily without the colours of life. It was death, grey like smoke fading to air. Charlie's aura was pulsing like a heart and growing like a pyre. 

"Well. In that case…" Jackaby trailed off.The attendants began to stir. 

My heart was racing. "Help me get him out."

I moved towards the glowing orange casket. Jackaby and Jenny followed on my heels, and their auras were pink where they were mingled. My gloved hands shook as I placed them at the latches. The minister protested and I duly ignored him. With a click the compartment unlocked. I pushed it open.

Charlie Barker lay inside, dressed in a pressed uniform honoring him a policeman. Beneath the uniform that he wore so proudly in his life was his solid human form. And his chest was rising. 

His eyes, sweet and dark, blinked open. There was not a scar on his face, and the ear that had been torn during the battle at the church was whole and healed. 

This was not a corpse being pulled with strings with no will or pain or life. This was real. I had no knowledge of the twain's true power, but it had been enough.

"My word," muttered Jackaby. 

Jenny looked like she was holding her breath, though she really didn't have any breath to hold.

"Charlie," I whispered. "You're alive." The words left my lips, the evidence before my eyes, yet I could not believe it yet. 

Charlie blinked and squinted, as if clearing a haze from his eyes. "Abigail?" His voice was coarse and dry. 

The front row of people close enough to hear and see gasped and murmured. The people -- human, not creature -- made the sign of the cross. It didn't matter. It would ward nothing off. 

The tears were flowing in earnest now, just barely blurring the Sight. Charlie must have been trying to piece everything together because his brow was knit with confusion. He glanced around. The sky; grey and overcast but not quite right for rain. The white inside of the casket. The line of other caskets beside him. 

There wasn't quite alarm in his eyes, but rather a mute, solemn understanding. I saw him fight with the words. "I was dead," he managed. "The battle. The Dire King." 

Jackaby himself was squinting at Charlie like he could still summon the Sight, only for a moment, then relented, shaking his head. "Yes, rather," said Jackaby. "You were quite dead. Welcome back, I suppose."

Charlie tried sitting up, and his movements were visibly stiff. Jackaby and I took an arm each and slowly eased him up into sitting. 

He looked at me worriedly. "Your eyes," Charlie says, bringing a hand up to my cheek and brushing away a tear with the pad of his thumb. His hand is rough from work and warm with life. I lift my own hand and hold him there. 

Jackaby looks like he wants to protest the affection but this time but swallows it. I'm glad he does. If he did I would have hit him. 

Instead he explains. "It would seem, Mr. Barker, that our merry little band have each had our fill of dying. I had my share the same day as you, and as the Seer, had to forfeit the Sight to someone else. I willed it to Miss Rook." He taps the corner of his eye for emphasis. 

Charlie absorbs this information. "You died? Are we all being resurrected?" Then he grimaces when he glances at Jenny. "Apologies. I meant no offense."

She smiles graciously. "None taken." Then she glances around. The attendants have been watching. Some had stood and fled, some sat bewildered and gaping. A couple looked horrified. "But perhaps we should bring Charlie back to Auger Lane."

Jackaby made himself useful by simply being himself. He enthusiastically directed the attendants' attention away from the recently deceased Charlie Barker by some talk of magic and the unlikelihood of such a resurrection, then promptly dampened his enthusiasm when prodded by Jenny. 

"This is still a funeral," she reminded him firmly. 

Jackaby sobered, and somehow pulled together a semblance of a sort of eulogy while Jenny and I helped Charlie out of his casket. 

"I'd first like to assure all of you that you were likely not seized by hallucinations or delirium, unless you were recently in proximity to a kind of flowering plant grown with the manure of a young breed of three-eyed sea monster. In which case, you may have if you were unfortunate enough to have inhaled the pollen." Jackaby stood like a minister with his hands clasped. "But what you witnessed was indeed a man who was brought back to life. It was not by means of miracles or hoping or praying, however." Jackaby glances at me meaningfully with such understanding that I wonder if he might still have a sliver of the Sight.

He goes on, even though we had Charlie standing securely between Jenny and I. I found myself still listening. "But maybe it was hope, as much as it was an understanding between two beings that knew magic, and knew love. I'm disappointed to say that the other fallen behind me will not be sharing in the life that was suddenly breathed - or transferred, it is still unclear to me, which is new - into one of these caskets.

"And it is not that they are not worthy or loved, but rather that they were finished serving the living. I personally think that that's the finality of death. They may manifest as ghosts or they might find rest by stepping over a little stream in a shadowy forest where they'll journey to an afterlife. Mr. Barker was not yet finished serving," he said, glancing at us, and kept our gaze as he finished. "His loyalty wouldn't allow it after all. He was about to make a promise, and a little hairy magic fellow decided that Mr. Barker should live to see that promise through."

\--

At Auger Lane, after tea and some explanation for Charlie's benefit, I had him to myself. Jackaby and Jenny left us after we filled him in on what had happened after everything. Before Jackaby went off to do whatever it he did now that he wasn't the the Seer, he patted me gently on the shoulder. 

I led Charlie upstairs. We were in my room now, him sitting on my bed where I insist he took time to adjust, and I standing before him. 

He had shed the uniform jacket he had been put into, and hung it on the bed poster. I was still donning my black mourning clothes. 

I didn't know what to say. What do you say to a man who was just dead? But I supposed that was silly to think. I had been able to speak with Jackaby after all. 

I took a step forward and tugged off my glove to card my fingers through his dark, curly hair. He leaned into the touch. 

"I was afraid," I say. I'm surrounded by his orange aura, wading through it. "When I saw you on the battlefield. Terrified when you were in the church."

His eyes darkened a bit, glossed over with a memory. "I was foolish. I thought I could challenge him."

I swallowed, searching for words. "Alina is a queen now, did you know? She's queen of the Annywn." I paused. "She wanted a reason to make you proud."

It still stung to consider Alina anything but a traitor. Though Arawn had inspired and stoked her ideas, she was partly responsible for killing Jackaby and Charlie. She was Charlie's dear sister, and I am satisfied that her ways are changed, but the damage was done. But apparently, at least Charlie's fate had been undone. 

He shook his head. "She didn't have to do great things to make me proud."

"You can visit her," I offer, then hesitate. "I would go with you, but I'm not quite ready to face the Annywn again just yet." I tap my brow. "The Sight and all."

Charlie nods with understanding. He swallows thickly, and his throat bobs. I sensed him working up the courage to say something. "It was her, wasn't it? Who betrayed you and Jackaby?"

I bite the inside of my cheek and sigh. "She wanted a place in Arawn's new world, whatever that was. She wanted it badly. I'm sorry. But she turned out alright. Alina knew she was wrong."

Charlie rubs a hand across his face, tiredly. He's folded inwards on himself, like he wanted to be smaller. He was ashamed. 

"Don't do that," I say. "She was wrong but she still wants you to be proud of her." I reach out and hold his shoulders, broad and solid under my palms. I never imagined holding him again. The feeling makes my heart rise like a balloon. 

He takes my hand off his shoulder and laces his fingers through mine. I felt warm and giddy like a schoolgirl. "Are you alright, though?" 

"Charlie! You were just dead hours ago! I should be worrying if you're alright." I squeeze his fingers.

He tilts his head back to look at me. His dark eyes were alight with what I could only describe as life. I'm so close that I can count his lashes. "Are you worrying?" he asks. 

Suddenly the ring, which I've begun wearing on a thin silver chain feels like a weight around my neck. If I glance down it's own aura -- made from his own emotion attachment to it shimmers orange. I wondered how I'd go about telling him that I had it, then decided I'd wait. Whatever would happen with it now, Charlie was here to decide for it. 

I couldn't help myself now. I take a step forward and find myself in his arms. He's tall enough just sitting that his head rests on my collarbone, his forehead cradled by the slope of my neck. His arms wrap tightly around my waist.

I bury my cheek in his hair, tears forming at last. "God, I've missed you," I say, clutching at him, feeling his breathing and his warmth. He still smells like cloves. 

"You needn't worry anymore," he whispers, sounding choked himself. "I'm here now, Abigail. I'm right here."

We stayed there, holding each other for long minutes. I glance from Charlie to the room we're in, full of his aura, pulsing with him at the heart of it.

**Author's Note:**

> God I love the Jackaby series with my whole heart and I needed to add on to the ending and have Abigail and Charlie meet again. And there just aren't enough Jackaby fics on here sooo


End file.
